This past Sunday, Julie and I attended the funeral for 91 year-0ld Frank Bales, my grandfather, or "Papa" as we called him. I really liked him, and I wish you could have known him. It seems that just about everybody who did was glad they had, so I'll tell you a bit about him.
For all of my life Papa wore hearing aids, which meant that you had to speak loudly to him. His own voice didn't really need amplification, as it was deep and booming. He smelled like Old Spice and Folgers coffee. He always wore a gold watch face-down on his right wrist. As a child, this made me feel a special kinship with him since I also wore my watch on my right arm. (I don't know what his reason was, but mine was that the cheap watches I wore gave me rashes on my left wrist but not on my right.)
